Thursday, April 26, 2012

Hume Again

Scottish Enlightenment historian Nicholas Phillipson
recently updated his short biography of David Hume; “David Hume The Philosopher
as Historian”. In this work, Phillipson
observes, ‘…”Of Superstition and
Enthusiasm” was one of a series of boadsides that Hume fired at the Christian
Church and it was to have a profound influence on historians like William
Robertson, Edward Gibbon, and Sir Walter Scott..’

Later in this work, Phillipson compares Hume’s "History of England" coverage of
the hysteria surrounding the Popish Plot of 1678 to Scott’s treatment of the Porteous
Riots:

‘..Hume’s
discussion of the mass hysteria that gave birth to the plot is succinct, subtle
and memorable and gives one a foretaste of the greatest of all such
descriptions, Sir Walter Scott’s account of the Porteous Riots in “The Heart of
Midlothian.”…’